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Ritz Carlton Bahrain
As an avid restaurant diner and a lover of fine food I eagerly counted down the days to the Ritz-Carlton, Bahrain Lifestyle Festival held on 27 to 31 October 2010 and the guest appearance of Michelin Star Chefs at the Ritz-Carlton, Bahrain’s three main restaurants. As soon as I heard about this gastronomic extravaganza I quickly reserved a table at Plums, Nirvana, Primavera – on separate days I may add! Would this prove to be a once in a lifetime taste bud tingling experience or simply posh nosh that doesn’t satisfy your appetite? Let’s see….
My first encounter of Bahrain fine dining Michelin Star style was in Primavera with chef extraordinaire, author and ambassador of Italian cuisine, Chef Mario Musoni is the chef-patron of the Michelin starred Al Pino restaurant in Montescano, Pavia, Italy and counts Giorgio Armani and his friends amongst his celebrity clientele. Would Chef Mario be including me amongst his future clientele?
As with all my fine dining dates I was accompanied by my wife and as soon as we approached the entrance of the restaurant we immediately noticed a distinct buzz and an air of excitement. The maitre d’ oozed “everyone is amazed with Chef Mario’s food, you are in for a treat.” We regularly dine at Primavera and usually find the food to be exquisite. Could a Michelin starred chef make it better? If he could, how much better could he make it?
We sat down at our table and immediately noticed Chef Mario’s very own menu, a change to the usual Primavera menu. What to choose? We ordered the salted cod cream potatoes with crispy polenta and the cannellini bean cream soup with clams, mussels and chilly oil with the intention that, as always, we would share each dish so we could compare notes on our culinary findings.
Before our starters reached us we were pleasantly surprised with Chef Mario’s appetizer, parmesan ice cream. Yes, that’s right, parmesan ice cream. As we took our first tentative tastes the maitre d’ came up to us and said “surprising isn’t it”. My taste buds were surprised. Full marks for shock factor and certainly a memorable start to the Festival. Having said that, I don’t think I would order parmesan ice cream.
Before we had finished discussing our experience the starters arrived – the salted cod cream potatoes looked fabulous – everything you would expect of fine dining – small, delicate and fancy appearance. The cannellini bean cream soup, a deep rustic red which looked like it was full of flavour. We couldn’t wait to taste. The salty cod cream potatoes were salty, as you would expect, the soup, a touch disappointing, the bean flavour overpowered the sea food and the chilly added like an after thought it seemed. Perhaps we had expected too much, especially after the shock of the parmesan ice cream. We consoled ourselves that the starters were “good” and that it would be the main course which would deliver on “wow factor”.
Again, it was with great excitement that we were served our main courses of turbot fillet with crust potatoes and veal “mortara syle” with foie gras and white truffle. Surprisingly, the turbot had no sauce…was this a mistake? Should we mention this to the maitre d’? We gave Chef Mario the benefit of the doubt and tucked into the turbot. We were glad that we did. The turbot didn’t need any sauce as it was succulent and juicy, packed with flavour. Our culinary education was back on track. The veal and foie gras – full marks for taste and texture, the foie gras just melted in your mouth.
So what about deserts? We ordered tiramisu scomposto consisting of mascarpone cream, chocolate soufflé, white chocolate ice cream with a crispy tuille. Surely this would be the grand finale? Sadly, no. The dessert was served in undersized cups – we couldn’t even get at the tiramisu with our spoons! When we went to turn the cups upside down to get to the tiramisu we found the cups to be red-hot and they probably still have my fingerprints on them!
Overall a very memorable experience and an enjoyable one but I wasn’t convinced that the Michelin star cuisine was that much better than the usual Primavera menu.
The following day we had booked ourselves a table at Plums with multi award winning Provencal chef Stephane Gaborieau. Would Chef Stephane, with his warm, sunny and sophisticated style of Provencal cooking and his shopping list of awards better our experience at Primavera? As I usually prefer Primavera over Plums (I am not a big fan of the lighting (or should I say lack of lighting) in Plums) I reduced the expectations I had before my experience in Primavera. After all, the Plums dining experience is usually first class so it would probably be difficult to significantly improve on this. How wrong I was!
Again, we were pleasantly surprised with an unannounced appetizer, a boiled egg covered in breadcrumbs! Really a boiled egg? No, it was actually scrambled eggs in breadcrumbs and truffle in the shape of an egg. Tasty, unusual and a good talking point to start the evening’s gourmet journey.
For starters we ordered grilled caramelized foie gras with water melon, brown sugar, dates and honey and warm Brittany lobster, country bread tartine with baby vegetables and a tapenade jus. The presentation was delightful, petite, neat and delicate. The colours, all matching and in balance – pleasing to the eye. The taste, flavoursome, juicy and exquisite. We had arrived! This food was on a different level. As we paused between tasting and discussing our experience we overheard other diners exude similar reactions. Within no time our main courses arrived, grilled beef tenderloin, potato, cep mushroom with Szechuan sauce and stuffed chicken breast, cheese cooked in low temperature with provencale vegetables. Another veritable delight. The tastes were fabulous, such scrumptious food! There wouldn’t be much work for the dishwasher tonight! There wasn’t much to say, just eat and smile! Surely the dessert couldn’t maintain this high standard?
For dessert we indulged ourselves, we ordered three of the four dishes on offer. Wild berry millefeuilles, passion fruit soufflé and deep fried cheese “Saint Maure” ravioli, seasame seed with basil tomato coulis. The millefeuilles and the ravioli arrived first. The millefeuilles was very fruity, the cheese ravioli, cheesy, not too much to report but then again they were very good dishes. But we still had the passion fruit soufflé – what a grand finale – this was fantastic, light, fruity.
We ordered coffee and deliberated the meal. Such wonderful tastes, excellent presentation. What perhaps was the best aspect was the pace of the dining experience. We had eaten fabulous food all night, so many different tastes and yet we had not over eaten – just pleasantly content. Chef Stephane had uplifted our palates.
The following night we visited Nirvana with one Michelin star chef Alfred Prasad. Chef Alfred was introduced as “turning Indian cuisine on its head, whilst somehow retaining authentic regional flavours”. We regularly travel to India and enjoy Indian food so we were really looking forward to this….
The maitre d’ helpfully suggested that we could order a mix of the various appetizers – this way we could sample more of Chef Alfred’s delicious delights. We ordered the gosht shorba (lamb soup flavoured with garlic, peppercorns and coriander), lasooni pasliyan (Australian lamb chops), grilled scollops in peppercorns, fennel, star anise and nigella seed chutney. Overall the tastes were good, but we didn’t have the same wow factor as the previous night.
We quickly turned our attention to the main course, jingha kalimirch (tossed prawns, cumin, onions, ground spices and crushed peppercorns) and Goan chicken with tomato sauce, ground chillies, cumin and vinegar. The taste, the texture, very authentic but with a modern twist, just as Chef Alfred’s write up had promised. We enjoyed the meal but it did not compare to the previous evening. There wasn’t the same structure to the meal – there wasn’t that anticipation of what’s next. Perhaps our taste buds were fatigued.
We were hoping for a big finish but were disappointed by the limited choice for dessert – just gajjar halwa (carrot fudge, melon seeds, pistachio, raisins and vanilla ice cream) and tandoori ananas (grilled pineapple, honey, cinnamon, chaat masala and rose ice cream). Should we choose one or perhaps both? The waiter, albeit very friendly, seemed to take forever to take our dessert order and as time slipped by we also decided to slip away with trying the dessert. Not the overall grande finale we had expected at the beginning of the night.
In conclusion, we thoroughly enjoyed the Ritz-Carlton, Bahrain Lifestyle Festival. Michelin standard cooking in Bahrain was a treat and we hope something similar will happen again soon. The stand out memories are parmesan ice-cream and the exquisite balance and pace of the dining experience prepared by chef Stephane Gaborieau. Each chef was fantastic as were the waiting staff in each of the three restaurants but I must single out Chef Stephane and Plums as the best.
